April 7th, early morning.
As soon as the sun rose and the morning breeze was still cool, the ten-person team each took their luggage and headed for the outskirts of Protagoras Territory.
Everyone was an extraordinary being of at least the Fourth Level, so they moved quickly and did not tire easily.
Before setting out, Iver cast a "Distant Journey Blessing" on everyone. This blessing greatly reduced the stamina consumed while running. It could even restore stamina through jogging or brisk walking, and climbing mountains would not leave them feeling fatigued.
This was extremely common in the game—in fact, it could be called the most common blessing. It could only be used outside combat. Its in-game effect was to increase land movement speed by 20%, but the blessing would disappear once the player took a hit. Its movement-speed increase also could not stack with a mount's movement speed; only the higher value would apply.
In places where summoning mounts was inconvenient...such as dungeons where one had to run a long way to gather materials or solve puzzles, or when following the main quest through more complicated areas, people could cast this blessing and then run through the map.
Some areas' main quests, event side quests, or class quests took rather winding routes, with the nearest teleportation point a long distance away. There were also some terribly foolish quests that required solving puzzles to find clues, or involved running back and forth through one loop after another for ages.
Back then, some priests and bards would make extra money by escorting people through quests—casting a status that increased movement speed outside combat, then leading them along shortcuts all the way to the destination.
Back when Iver was unemployed at home, he had some savings...but he was, after all, a "professional player"